Retina I

[landsknechte]

Soon to be landing on my doorstep...

Not the prettiest camera, but the oldest 35mm I've managed to land as of yet.



Kodak Retina I, Type 119 (1936-1938)

[PeterW]

Congratulations on getting the Retina. I love pre-war Retinas, and at the moment I've got five. My Type 119 is almost identical to yours except that it has a Compur to 1/300sec, not a Compur Rapid. I've also got a Type 118 (1935-1936) which is fairly rare as only just over 9,000 were made compared with 39,000 Type 119, but I haven't yet found a first model, the Type 117, at least not in my price range, despite their huge numbers, over 60,000 made in 1934 and 1935.

My 119 was cosmetically in worse condition than yours when I got it but the top half-plate is so easy to take off for stripping and respraying. The wind-on knob is a left hand thread and just unscrews when you turn it clockwise, against the arrow, and the viewfinder cover is held by a small screw on the rewind knob side. The thin black edging round the covering is easy to rub down and repaint with a small brush.

The covering is genuine leather, not leatherette, and on mine responded beautifully to a clean, some black leather dye and a coat of black shoe polish, all except the covering for the door which was missing when I got the camera. I wasn't able to find any leather with the right grain so I recovered it with black vinyl which looks OK but not original.

You'll find that the Xenar gives excellent results, including with colour, but it's uncoated so you have to be very careful about not getting the sun shining on it or you get flare. The front element flange is so thin its impossible to get a lens shade on it.

The shutter release can be a little awkward as I notice you haven't got the button release that screws into the cable socket on the shutter. They're rather difficult to find these days but you can make one with a bit of fiddling by cutting down an old cable release to take out the flexible bit.

I'm sure you'll enjoy using yours. There's something about the feel of early Retinas that hooks you once you try one. Any problems give me a shout and I'll try to help.

PeterW

[landsknechte]

Is the button release the only way to trigger the shutter? (I don't have it in hand, so I haven't been able to play with it yet.)

[PeterW]

No, there's an ordinary release lever on the shutter but you have to hook your finger over the top of the door to operate it. I find the button release more convenient.



Btw, make sure the focus is at infinity before pressing the two buttons at the top and bottom of the shutter plate to close the camera, otherwise you may bend a strut.

PeterW

[PeterW]

Hi Kamera Ron, and everyone.

I don't want to start a big heated debate here, but on the subject of 'to refurbish or not to refurbish' there are several viewpoints, all justifiable to some extent, so as it's Christmas time I'm going to indulge in another waffle.

Before I was so much into camera restoration I used to restore a lot of antique clocks for the family antiques business. My mentor - through his books and writings in the Horological Journal - was Donald de Carle who ran the repair and restoration workshops at Garrards, the Crown Jewellers, in London.

I used to go there sometimes just to look in awe and admiration at some of their restored antique watches and clocks, a humbling experience. They were absolutely faultless and superb, and the price was about three to four times what you would expect to pay for a similar clean and working but unrestored example in the average Bond Street antiques shop.

De Carle had the reputation of being a perfectionist in the workshop. He was well qualified to have that attitude because he was one of the finest craftsmen of his time. He also had the reputation of being something of a martinet, and is reputed to have given one of his craftsmen a right royal dressing down one day because the man had been in the 'dirty workshop' cleaning an old clock case, and had gone back into the assembly workshop with, as de Carle put it, enough dirt left under one of his fingernails to stop a dozen watches.

But I'm wandering from the point. I'm speaking from memory here because I no longer have my old copies of Horological Journal, but de Carle wrote something to the effect that fine patina on a well-cared for piece was one thing, and should be respected.

But he saw no virtue in dirt, nor the disfiguring signs of obvious ill treatment or sheer neglect. Such a piece, if it was worth restoring at all, should be restored to as near as possible the same as when it first left the maker's hands. He crossed swords on occasions with some museum curators who seemed to have a philosophy of 'we must preserve the past, dirt and all'.

The only cases where de Carle would draw the line and concede were those where an example of something was the only one, or one of only a very few, left in existence, or where it had particular historical associations. In those cases his philosophy was to preserve not restore. He also, obviously, drew the line at using old processes such as mercury fire gilding, which were a terrible health hazard. Gilders using a mercury and gold amalgam for gilding in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries seldom lived beyond the age of 30.

But despite working with some of the most rare and valuable watches and clocks in the world, de Carle never forgot the man working in the back room of a High-Street watch and clock dealer. He wrote quite a lot about repairing medium priced and even low-priced watches and clocks and discussed the balance between the owner spending a lot of money on a complete restoration and the value of the watch or clock. In these cases he often advocated a policy of 'do a good job, but only enough to get it going and keep going for the next year or two'. And tell the customer why.

Patience, mes enfants, I'm getting on to cameras right now.

Cameras I would put into the 'leave them alone' category are things like Fox Talbot's or Daguerre's original camera or Barnack's original prototype Leica. In those cases replicas can, and have, been made. Others would be the cameras of people like Weston, Larry Burrows, Robert Capa and similar legends. Or, indeed, any camera which is rare enough for there to be very few outside museums.

But in the case of anonymously owned popular cameras of which thousands were made, and a high proportion probably still exist, I too see little virtue in dings, torn leather and chipped paint. Even those, though, are preferable to bodged 'prettying up' with modern synthetic plastic spray-on paint (the ghost of a certain Canon F1 just won't rest!!).

With regard to painting the old worn satin chromium of a camera black - and the king of that technique MUST be *Jim Blazik - or re-covering in fancy leather, as Randy has done to several cameras, well, why not? Provided they don't come in the Wow Rare!! category and they're well done. If you want to have a go, then I say go right ahead. Even if your skills aren't at the moment very highly developed they'll improve, and you can always go back and have a second attempt. Similarly if you want to learn about camera repair practice on some old junk cheapies, the simpler the better, where it won't matter if they never get together again. Quite a few of my early attempts went that way.

Read all you can about it, and don't be afraid to ask for advice, but if you don't make a start and practice you'll never learn.

*Jim Blazik's website 'Rangefinder cameras of the Soviet era' doesn't seem to be available any more. Anyone know if it's gone down completely, or just changed its host?

OK, relax. Christmas waffle over. Let's hear your views, when you've got over indigestion from indulging in too much festive food and (dare I say it?) got a clear head again.

It's now 12 minutes to Christmas here in the UK, and time I was safely tucked up in bed. G'night all!

HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS DAY!

PeterW

[landsknechte]

What is the other lever to the right that looks like the "normal shutter release" indicated in the diagram?

I'll probably just leave it as is, other than giving it a good cleaning, especially since it would be impossible to replace the embossed leather with something close to the original. I'm hesitant to monkey too much with a camera older than myself.

By the way, I just got the serial number: 913384

Can anyone date it from that?

[PeterW]

What is the other lever to the right that looks like the "normal shutter release" indicated in the diagram?

By the way, I just got the serial number: 913384

Can anyone date it from that?

The other lever in my picture, the one just under the cable socket button release is the shutter cocking lever. Sorry, I forgot to label it. I keep forgetting that many present day photographers are not as familiar with hand-cocked Compurs as some old fogeys like me! . BTW, you DON'T cock these older Compurs on the B and T settings.

I don't have any serial number dating figures for the Retina, and I haven't found Kodak's Camerosity date code on any Kodaks built in the Stuttgart (ex-Nagel Camerawerk) factory.

According to Brian Coe's book 'Kodak The First Hundred Years' the Type 119 Retina was made from 1936 to 1938 and 39,111 were built, but this dates it only between three years.

However, yours, like mine, has a Schneider lens, and these can be dated more closely from the serial number. The serial numbers for the relevant years were: 800,000 end of September 1935; 900,000 end of May 1936; 1.000.000 end of November 1936 1,200,000; end of December 1937; and 1,400,000 end of November 1938.

My Type 119 has a Xenar lens with the serial number 940297 so that dates the lens between May and November 1936. The serial number on your Xenar looks to be 991868 as near as I can tell from the picture so that would put it in the same date bracket.

However, these figures do not necessarily date the camera as it was common for lenses to be delivered to a camera maker for stock anything from three months to a year before they were used depending on the production rate, but at least they give a good guide.

It's also possible to date Compur shutters, though less precisely, from their serial numbers. The number is found on the side of the shutter, in the part with the black wavy design. On my Type 119 the number is hidden by the door, and all I can see is the last figure 2. I suppose you could read it with a thin mirror, and the relevant dates are: end of 1936 3,200,000 and end of 1939 5,400,000. With both lenses and shutters you could interpolate to get closer, assuming a steady rate of production.

BTW, for general information I have Compur shutter serial number dates only from 1920 to 1939. On the Schneider Optics website you can find lens serial number dates from 1919 to 2000.

PeterW

[PeterW]

Brian wrote:

The one Retina II that I have with the Camerosity Code has the 47mm F2 Ektar lens on it, with a date code of 1946. I figure it is one of the first Retina's built after the war. I restored it cosmetically with knobs and leather from a parts Retina II. The latter camera was inoperative and was missing its front element, but was otherwise beautiful.

Is the code on the lens (serial number starting EO...) or inside the camera with a full DDMMYY, Brian? The only Retina with an Ektar lens I've got, a Type 010 also 1946, isn't coded either on the lens or in the body. I know the Camerosity code wasn't put on all Kodaks or Kodak lenses, but does anyone know when it was introduced?

BTW, opinion seems divided whether Camerosity was a contraction of camera curiosity or camera monstrosity. .

PeterW

[landsknechte]

The Retina arrived in yesterday's mail, and I'm quite impressed. The build quality certainly exceeds that of anything by Kodak that I've had the opportunity to fondle. I'm going to try to get out this weekend and run a roll of film through it.

The 1/500 setting is surprising for a camera of that age. How fast was the film available in the 1930's?

[PeterW]

Hi,

The Retina arrived in yesterday's mail, and I'm quite impressed. The build quality certainly exceeds that of anything by Kodak that I've had the opportunity to fondle.

The Retina was a Kodak only in name, financial backing, marketing and advertising. It was designed by Dr. August Nagel, a much respected designer in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Nagel was the boss of Contessa Nettel in Suttgart which was absorbed into Zeiss Ikon in 1926. Nagel designed the Zeiss Ikon Nettel and the Ikonta but he left in 1928 to form his own company again, Nagel Camerawerk, in Suttgart and took a lot of key personnel with him from his old Contessa Nettel factory.

By the early 1930s Nagel was looking for financial backing, and Kodak was looking for a mainland European manufacturing base for high quality cameras. Kodak bought Nagel Camerawerk but left Nagel to run it as Technical Director. At first, some existing Nagel cameras were rebadged as Kodaks, but in 1934 came what many consider to be Nagel's masterpiece, the Retina, built to the same standards as Zeiss Ikon products.

With it came the first disposable 35mm cassette which Kodak was ideally placed to make, and was adopted by almost every other maker of 35mm cameras since. It isn't stretching a point to say that the Retina changed the face of 35mm photography from a plaything for the rich to a format for everybody.

Other superb quality cameras designed by Nagel and built in the same factory in the 1930s were the Kodak Duo 620 6x6 folder and the Kodak Regent 6x9 folder, particularly the later models with coupled rangefinders. They are the equal of any similar cameras that came from Germany in the 1930s, and well worth looking for if you don't mind respooling 120 film on to 620 spools.

I have the second model Duo 620, from 1937, with a chromium plated top plate but without the rangefinder, and it's a joy to handle. I bought it on ebay very cheaply because many people nowadays don't equate the name Kodak with that sort of German precision-built camera.



My 1937 Kodak Duo 620

PeterW

[PeterW]

I forgot to answer the second part of your question.

Films in the mid to late 1930s ranged in speed from 32 to 100 ASA, but the grain of 100 ASA film then was more pronounced than it is now, more like 800 today, and the resolving power wasn't as high.

PeterW

[landsknechte]

peterw said:

Hi,

The Retina arrived in yesterday's mail, and I'm quite impressed. The build quality certainly exceeds that of anything by Kodak that I've had the opportunity to fondle.

The Retina was a Kodak only in name, financial backing, marketing and advertising.

It shows.

[pentaxgraflex]

I believe Kodak started using the Camerosity code in
1940. They made lenses labelled Ektar beginning in
1936 (I have a 107mm F/3.7 Anastigmat Ektar) but it
has no code. The earliest lens I have seen with the
code is from 1940, and I have read the latest is from
1963. Some of the cheaper lenses never had the code
assigned. And I think only the USA built lenses used
the code.

[galenk]

I love the old retina's I have a 1a that I still use, It's built like a swiss watch ;D

[paulatukcamera]

I agree.

The problem with Retinas is that they are common. Collectors want to say "this is rare and aren't I clever I've got one"

The reason they are rare is that nobody bought one!

Of all the late fifties and early sixties cameras, for finish none can better a Retina. I have a lot of Japanese cameras in my collection - Beautys, Konicas etc and none of them has the "fit & finish" of a Retina. I think the IIIC is still the best finished camera in my collection. I often just say hold this in your hands this is why I collect old cameras - now focus it Yes they all agree smooth as silk - I agree built like a Swiss watch.

Now to provoke a few. Voigtlanders - Zeiss - many claim they are the "bees knees" I own a few, but they do not handle as nicely as the Retina. Contessamatic SBE v Retina IIF - no contest the Retina is a better shape and size and has a nicer finish. Vitomatic IIB v Retina IIS - the Vito is front heavy and a pig to handle compared to the Kodak. I'll not go on - I'm sure to provoke the masses!

Paul